BrowserQuest – a massively multiplayer HTML5 (WebSocket + Canvas) game experiment

It’s time for some gaming action with a new HTML5 game demo: BrowserQuest, a massively multiplayer adventure game created by Little Workshop (@glecollinet & @whatthefranck) and Mozilla.

Play the game: browserquest.mozilla.org
BrowserQuest

BrowserQuest is a tribute to classic video-games with a multiplayer twist. You play as a young warrior driven by the thrill of adventure. No princess to save here, just a dangerous world filled with treasures to discover. And it’s all done in glorious HTML5 and JavaScript.

Even better, it’s open-source so be sure to check out the source code on GitHub!

Watch a screencast:

A multiplayer experience

BrowserQuest screenshot

BrowserQuest can be played by thousands of simultaneous players, distributed across different instances of the in-game world. Click on the population counter at any time to know exactly how many total players are currently online.

Players can see and interact with each other by using an in-game chat system. They can also team up and fight enemies together.

BrowserQuest is a game of exploration: the more dangerous the places you go, the better the rewards.

Powered by WebSockets

WebSockets are a new technology enabling bi-directional communication between a browser and a server on the web.

BrowserQuest is a demo of how this technology can be used today to create a real-time multiplayer game in a single webpage. When you start to play, your browser opens up a WebSocket connection to one of several load-balanced game servers. Each server hosts multiple world instances and handles the player synchronization and game logic within all instances. Because the server code is running on Node.js, both the server and client codebases share a small portion of the same JavaScript source code.

Server code is available on Github.

BrowserQuest screenshot

Built on the Web platform

BrowserQuest makes extensive use of different web technologies, such as:

  • HTML5 Canvas, which powers the 2D tile-based graphics engine.
  • Web workers, allowing to initialize the large world map without slowing down the homepage UI.
  • localStorage, in which the progress of your character is continually saved.
  • CSS3 Media Queries, so that the game can resize itself and adapt to many devices.
  • HTML5 audio, so you can hear that rat or skeleton die!

Available everywhere

Since BrowserQuest is written in HTML5/JavaScript, it is available across a lot of different browsers and platforms. The game can be played in Firefox, Chrome and Safari. With WebSockets enabled, it’s also playable in Opera. Moreover, it’s compatible with iOS devices, as well as tablets and phones running Firefox for Android.

BrowserQuest screenshot

The mobile versions are more experimental than the desktop experience, which has richer features and performance, but it’s an early glimpse of what kind of games will be coming to the mobile Web in the future. Give it a try with your favorite mobile device!

Join the adventure

Want to be part of BrowserQuest? Create your own character and venture into the world. Fight enemies by yourself or with friends to get your hands on new equipment and items. You might even stumble upon a couple of surprises along the way…

About Paul Rouget

Paul is a Firefox developer.

More articles by Paul Rouget…


236 comments

  1. David Mulder

    Great .; I have been working on exactly this 2 weekends ago :P Hmm, guess I can stop working on that I guess XD

    March 27th, 2012 at 06:45

  2. Daniel Tiecher

    Wow, what a great showcase app of the state of Open Web technologies.

    Really appreciate the hard work you’ve put on it. Only problem is your servers keeping up with all the players you’ll be getting. ;-)

    March 27th, 2012 at 07:04

    1. guillaume.lecollinet

      Thanks!

      You can check how our servers distribute players in real-time here: http://browserquest.mozilla.org/status/

      March 27th, 2012 at 08:36

  3. Andrew Hampton

    This looks great! What license is it released under?

    March 27th, 2012 at 07:15

    1. guillaume.lecollinet

      Licensing information will be available soon in the github repo.

      March 27th, 2012 at 08:35

  4. Lars-Magnus Skog

    Very cool! Would love to contribute to the project. Drop me mail! Cheers /Magnus

    March 27th, 2012 at 07:26

  5. Tchegito

    Awesome ! You did a great work !

    It reminds me that JavaScript is right for this kind of project. Except for the platform choice, we got the same idea, about old RPG games ! If you’re interesed in : http://code.google.com/p/zildo/downloads/list

    I’ll give it a try !

    March 27th, 2012 at 08:03

  6. sombriks

    have to say… amazing. Also the trick to make the entire world a square board to make movement deterministic and ease the path solving is just genial.

    March 27th, 2012 at 08:09

  7. Nicolas Froidure

    A great game ! It gives the will to create my own !

    March 27th, 2012 at 08:13

  8. mkv

    mozilla is awesome………

    March 27th, 2012 at 08:18

  9. Lukas Wo

    Ripped the graphics from SNES Legend of Zelda?

    March 27th, 2012 at 08:27

    1. guillaume.lecollinet

      Nope, made them all myself!

      March 27th, 2012 at 08:35

    2. wes

      Hehe I thought the same thing. I checked though, the sprites and tiles are different enough to be unique. The styles are definitely close though.

      March 27th, 2012 at 13:32

  10. Patrick Hughes

    For someone unfamiliar with the process: what tools are used to create the maps and other data?

    March 27th, 2012 at 08:58

  11. sombriks

    @guillaume nice to hear, please consider the business-friendly creative commons license for the assets, for sure this work will flourish and people can even giveback derivative creations.

    March 27th, 2012 at 09:00

  12. kubica

    Hello, I’m looking forward to websockets, but I cant find if binary data is already supported or not. On older versions of spec it says it’s not supported, is it still now? Did you use utf-8 text or binary data in your game? I have to check the code. What backend do you use, python maybe? If yes then what server, your own or twisted?

    March 27th, 2012 at 09:09

    1. kubica

      OK. Sorry, I didnt read that it’s on node.js.
      Still I’m curious about data frames you use. :)

      PS i hate this captcha, cant read it ;/

      March 27th, 2012 at 09:26

  13. Zkarts

    I really like the simplicity and the multiplayer, but is there an way to make sure I play together with a friend on one server?

    March 27th, 2012 at 09:14

    1. guillaume.lecollinet

      Unfortunately, not at the moment. If you want to play with a friend, I recommend logging at exactly the same time.

      March 27th, 2012 at 09:24

  14. DaRaFF

    Great Game! Great use of actual technologies for browsers. I really like the way browser-based HTML5 games goes.

    March 27th, 2012 at 09:33

  15. KLUTCH

    Anyone else found Rick Astley?
    :)

    March 27th, 2012 at 09:38

    1. sombriks

      yes and also nyan cat is there, :-)

      March 27th, 2012 at 10:01

  16. exacto

    Got all the achievements! Is there any way to get into the Mario pipe.

    March 27th, 2012 at 11:06

  17. Jess

    this is fantastic! It can’t stop playing. I do wish that you could choose your initial avatar. It feels a little weird being called “young man” from time to time. There’s so much potential here. Congratulations!

    March 27th, 2012 at 11:22

  18. Anonymous

    Very impressive. Managed to get 18/20 achievements; unfortunately, the last two (Meatshield and Still Alive) would require intentionally losing several times.

    March 27th, 2012 at 12:08

  19. Arc

    Shiny! Only some problems with the camera when going to a location requires crossing of several screens.

    Sometimes I can’t move anymore once the character has plotted its path and sometimes the camera refuses to follow the character.

    March 27th, 2012 at 12:26

  20. Mithos

    Where is the cow level?

    March 27th, 2012 at 12:53

  21. Steve

    When I run the server code, I immediately get an error saying

    ERROR uncaughtException: Error: connect ECONNREFUSED

    then, if a user tries to connect, I see:

    WebSocket Request unsupported by WebSocket-Node: TypeError: Cannot call method ‘write’ of null

    Anyone have any ideas what might be going wrong?

    March 27th, 2012 at 13:02

    1. Alex

      I’m getting the same error. Wish someone could help with this

      WebSocket Request unsupported by WebSocket-Node: TypeError: Cannot call method ‘write’ of null

      April 4th, 2012 at 05:23

      1. Stephen

        Did you have any luck getting the server running? I’m having the same problem.

        April 11th, 2012 at 13:00

        1. Wade

          It would be great if someone wrote up a tutorial on getting the server running. I’ve seen numerous posts requesting help on getting it setup and running, but not much offered at this time.

          I’ve also seen other people post their URL to their sites hosting the game as well, and I’ve yet to find one that works.

          This game has potential, and i’m sure there will be many alterations done to this game once there is an understanding on how to get the server portion running.

          Anyone out there that has the server portion running willing to give us a simple run down on what you did to get it up and running?

          April 12th, 2012 at 05:43

          1. Chad Hartman

            I was having that same error and ended up being an error in my server config files. Double check those and if you guys still want a write up I would be happy to do it.

            April 18th, 2012 at 07:05

          2. Robert Burkhall

            If your trying to run the server you may have the same cross-scripting issue I ran into try to run the client. Server issues are definitely config files. “metrics_enabled”: false not true. I haven’t when through the server code yet.

            https://github.com/mozilla/BrowserQuest/issues/96

            August 17th, 2012 at 23:57

  22. Klintoris

    Really awesome 8 bit experience, I believe this is the future of yesterday. The html 5 chimera of fail materializes. At the same time, flash is going away to 3D games at 30 fps on mobile through flex and we are left with this failure. Awesome.

    March 27th, 2012 at 13:13

  23. Martin Wells

    Awesome work guys. So retro, so fun. And a great demo of webworkers especially.

    March 27th, 2012 at 13:31

  24. Alessandro Bahgat

    What a great job!
    Thank you for releasing it on GitHub :)

    It can be effectively used as a base for other games and even for some “uncommon” things (e.g. teaching kids how to code by altering the games they play). Anyone up for such a thing?

    March 27th, 2012 at 14:12

  25. Karai

    Terrific proof of concept! This game is actually pretty fun. One thing I noticed in Chrome, though:

    event.layerX and event.layerY are broken and deprecated in WebKit. They will be removed from the engine in the near future.

    Cheers~

    March 27th, 2012 at 14:25

  26. Benjamin Meyer

    Opening the game up in inspector it looks like every time you join the game it re-downloads a ton of assets that could be sitting inside the browser cache. A quick tweak should fix that.

    March 27th, 2012 at 14:35

  27. Jakub Minkiewicz

    I know this is just a showcase game, but I would really really want this to become a full feature MMO

    March 27th, 2012 at 14:48

  28. Karai

    I also noticed some of the mp3s are giving 404 errors, such as lavaworld.mp3 c:

    March 27th, 2012 at 15:06

  29. Eric

    Awesome!! Doubly so because I love classic RPGs, but this is an outstanding showcase of what can be done purely within a browser with a relatively small amount of work. If only I had the time and creativity to do such a thing myself :)

    Mozilla continues to be a great force in browser development, keep it up!

    March 27th, 2012 at 15:31

  30. COCO

    that was fun!

    March 27th, 2012 at 16:12

  31. Chooch

    How Do i connect

    March 27th, 2012 at 16:23

    1. Jean-Yves Perrier

      Just go to the URL and follow the instructions (you need a modern browser but not necessary Firefox of course)

      March 27th, 2012 at 16:36

      1. Ellie Kesselman

        This sounds wonderful, and so inclusive!

        M. Jean-Yves: This means that I could play with my friend m0zilla (who uses Firefox) and my friend Elo (on Internet Explorer 9), while I am using Google Chrome browser, no? And we would all have the same visuals, the same UX! Assuming that flood of conviviality doesn’t overload your servers, of course ;o)

        March 27th, 2012 at 17:54

  32. Jon

    Seems to be down. I get a connection error when I try to play the game, and no data when I visit the stats page.

    March 27th, 2012 at 16:46

  33. no

    I guess nobody at Mozilla could be arsed to put in a simple filter so the first thing I see when I launched into the game isn’t some guy next to me named “niggerbasher”, huh? Good going, jack asses. How about getting back to that whole stability and memory handling thing and play games later?

    March 27th, 2012 at 16:51

  34. Asanar

    Finally some cool use of HTML5 :)) How long did the development take?

    March 27th, 2012 at 17:01

  35. Ken

    I think the term might be slashdotted:
    http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/03/27/1856205/mozilla-releases-html5-mmo-browserquest

    March 27th, 2012 at 17:06

  36. Lonnie Taylor

    I played it for an hour. I beat it.

    March 27th, 2012 at 19:06

  37. Roman

    Yes, HTML5 games like this are important. A lot of gamers must first understand that there are coming alternatives for itunes and google play.

    March 27th, 2012 at 19:12

  38. Bizwank

    Crashes my cr-48 every time I try to load it :(

    March 27th, 2012 at 20:22

  39. Timoteo

    Such a great game!! loved o/

    March 27th, 2012 at 20:58

  40. Jim

    I was hoping for an Internet Explorer monster that just stands there and throws exceptions at you, but it was very impressive nonetheless. I’ve been having a lot of fun with canvas and audio.

    March 27th, 2012 at 22:16

  41. Shmerl

    Thanks, really cool! Are you going to expand it, or it’ll remain just a demo/experiment?

    March 27th, 2012 at 22:21

  42. James

    What is the last one on list after “For Science” as it is ???

    March 27th, 2012 at 22:50

  43. James

    lol I just walked off the screen

    March 27th, 2012 at 23:19

  44. James

    Keep at the maze, you will be glad you did lol

    I get the occasional freezes that requires F5 in order to reload game and be back in town again. The freezes happens mostly when entering another screen, especially say at a entrance.

    Otherwise a fun little game and a nice touch with the Firefox potion ;)

    March 27th, 2012 at 23:43

  45. Jonathan

    Most fun I’ve had out of an online game in a while. Love that it runs smoothly on a little netbook. Simplicity of gameplay and controls was a big plus too.

    March 27th, 2012 at 23:52

  46. Steve Barker

    I thought I would give this a go. I got an error message:

    “Your browser cannot run BrowserQuest!

    We’re sorry, but your browser does not support WebSockets.
    In order to play, we recommend using the latest version of Firefox, Chrome or Safari.”

    I switched on WebSockets and got the error message:

    “Your browser cannot run BrowserQuest!

    We’re sorry, but your browser does not support WebSockets.
    In order to play, we recommend using the latest version of Firefox, Chrome or Safari.”

    Oh yes it does! Just let it have a chance.

    March 28th, 2012 at 00:04

  47. Eax

    The game as of this moment is not working for me. It just stops at “Connecting to server…”. I suspect this has to do with that im trying to connect from my workplace. Its possible that they have restricted the ports or access or something. Am i right in assuming that? Or is the game servers just not up at this moment?

    I am using an up to date version of Firefox(11.0) by the way.

    March 28th, 2012 at 01:15

  48. Pera Tudt

    Nice, html 5 is the future. Glad to see more games like this. In the future we will have much more of this.

    March 28th, 2012 at 01:39

  49. Eric

    1. How come Mozilla decided to host your project?
    2. Why won’t it work under IE10? html5test.com tells me it can’t deal with server-sent events – might this be the reason?
    3. Great work! Keep it up, guys!

    March 28th, 2012 at 02:11

  50. Mick

    Amazing! This is the beginning of the new age of computer games

    March 28th, 2012 at 02:20

  51. Ulmo

    I’d appreciate some insight in how you handled audio. HTML5’s tag seems way too limited for games. Google’s Web Audio API appears to be a major step forward, but it’s not implemented in other browsers (yet).

    March 28th, 2012 at 03:40

    1. Arc

      I prefer the community developed Audio Data API.

      March 28th, 2012 at 11:01

      1. Ulmo

        Audio Data API is not any more “community developed” than Web Audio. Actually, Web Audio is a W3 spec (proposal), while Audio API isn’t. Besides, the Mozilla guys have admitted “we know the Audio Data API isn’t going to cut it” (link: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-audio/2012JanMar/0128.html )

        March 29th, 2012 at 04:43

        1. nemo

          Well, it might be considered more “community” developed in terms of the initial (extensive) feedback on the mailing list and the fact that being lower level, more of the libraries were community developed?

          Some more audio stuff.
          http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-streamproc-20111215/
          https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=615946

          April 3rd, 2012 at 08:08

          1. Ulmo

            There has been a lot of public feedback on Web Audio on the W3 list. Anyway, the point is, right now HTML5 Audio for games is in a pitiful state, pretty much unusable, and I believe it’s the main area where Flash is still ahead. Although Google’s Web Audio does look most promising to me, I personally don’t care so much which API is chosen, as long as everyone involved would agree on something and collaborate to make it happen.

            April 20th, 2012 at 05:03

  52. MikeCoglucifer

    doesn’t work on my browser – you guys need to hire some good flash devs before you put your stuff out there.

    March 28th, 2012 at 04:09

    1. Paulo Pontes

      not flash! the whole ponit in this is doing in HTML 5 so it wont need flash

      March 29th, 2012 at 04:04

    2. RoflCopter

      whooosh. completely missed the point there.

      March 29th, 2012 at 13:51

  53. Johan

    Looking at the requests passing trough Live HTTP headers for minutes, I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be possible to put all stuff into a single image map…
    (Perhaps you could even extract the individual images using canvas, that would be really cool. Oh, and while you’re at it… how about a progress indicator?

    March 28th, 2012 at 05:11

    1. Paul Rouget

      It’s already the case: http://cdn.mozilla.net/browserquest/img/1/tilesheet.png && http://cdn.mozilla.net/browserquest/img/1/barsheet.png

      March 29th, 2012 at 06:54

      1. Johan

        Yeah… Saw that after posting this comment. It’s still a lot of requests though. And the “Connecting to server” message that’s been showing for over half an hour already isn’t really helpful either. IMO it definitely needs some kind of progress indication, or at least some way to know it failed to connect and why…

        March 29th, 2012 at 07:57

  54. Gerard

    @Eax It’s not just you. It’s your workplace’s internet. Tethered from my phone and no issues. Connected to the workplace’s internet and “Connecting to Server” shows up. I have no idea how the managed to block this that fast.

    March 28th, 2012 at 05:30

  55. Mark

    Awesome game. Keep up the open source magic.

    March 28th, 2012 at 05:48

  56. Sebb

    @Eax @Gerard

    very likely it just uses a standard port range which is blocked, technically you could run this server from port 80 with a dedicated environment, should fix any port problems, i think’ :)

    March 28th, 2012 at 05:57

  57. ILoveWebSockets

    http://s4.noelshack.com/old/up/websockets-99a50dd414.png

    <3

    March 28th, 2012 at 06:14

  58. Azhar

    Looked like flash, but it’s need some device requirement specification? other than websockets?

    anyway that’s awesome! Good work!

    March 28th, 2012 at 06:14

  59. cath-leen

    @Eax @Gerard @Sebb

    I try to run the game too, but at my home. It stands on ‘connecting to server…’ . I hope that my connection isn’t restricted, but I don’t know which is the problem.
    I’ll follow the comments and retry…

    March 28th, 2012 at 06:17

  60. Johnny

    Me thinks your sever can’t handle the load after being featured in a codeproject newsletter.

    March 28th, 2012 at 06:28

    1. Paul Rouget

      We have more servers now. It should be ok.

      March 29th, 2012 at 06:54

      1. Marc-Andre

        Hey, when I go to http://browserquest.mozilla.org/ and then I enter character and play I get stuck on connecting to server and nothing else appear. I cant play :S

        March 30th, 2012 at 10:09

  61. V

    I get stuck on ‘connecting to server…’ occasionally. Reloading the page seems to help. After that I get stuck on getting the character to move though. I can get it to say stuff, but there’s no response to my mouse clicks.

    March 28th, 2012 at 07:04

    1. Fanolian

      Try increasing your browser width to >1000.

      March 29th, 2012 at 05:55

      1. V

        Yup. That did it. (Tried it after seeing your ticket https://github.com/mozilla/BrowserQuest/issues/46 )

        March 29th, 2012 at 06:32

  62. zebarnabe

    I seems that it doesn’t work in any of my browsers (Chrome, Canary Chrome, FF Beta, Opera) … but using FF 9 in Linux on a virtual machine works ….

    Also … it made the browser (FF Beta 12.0) take +2GB of RAM and crash my computer….

    March 28th, 2012 at 07:20

  63. Tchegito

    It seems that browserquest’s success has been is undoing ! more than 1400 players at this time ! Congratulations !

    March 28th, 2012 at 07:21

  64. a

    well is that a bug?

    I get in a cave, kill all monster

    and a chest appear, when I click the chest, whole game just freeze

    Browser isn’t crash
    and other tab in browser are still working

    only the game just “Freeze”

    March 28th, 2012 at 07:41

  65. Juegos de Mario

    This looks incredible cool! Unfortunately my work blocks all ports, so i have to wait to get home to actually connect.

    Believe it or not just yesterday I was searching for a HTNL5 node.js MMO game engine. Please post the license info at Github.

    Thanks for sharing!

    March 28th, 2012 at 07:42

  66. Victor Popescu

    Guys, we’ve been working on a game developed using these technologies and a bit more, for more than a year now. We have quite the adventure coming soon on all HTML5 platforms, so, we would love your feedback and support.
    You may check out all we have revealed at http://www.bugtopia.net and at http://facebook.com/bugtopia

    For all those interested, we’ll be starting a private beta very soon.

    March 28th, 2012 at 08:22

  67. Yousef

    Stuck at ‘connecting to server…’ The game never worked…

    Solution? :( I want to play it…

    March 28th, 2012 at 08:40

    1. Paul Rouget

      It should work now (we got more servers).

      March 29th, 2012 at 06:56

      1. Zaladin

        I’m still stuck at “Connecting to server…”. Any fix for it?

        March 29th, 2012 at 09:45

      2. Yousef

        It’s still not fixed for me. I never connected and I still cannot. I’m willing to do anything that can help identifying the issue…

        April 4th, 2012 at 08:47

  68. Carl114

    Amazing game! HTML5 is great that I do not speak English. The page I translated using Google translate, and I can read texts in Czech. This is great :).

    I went through all the maps and fulfilled all the tasks. Really nice game. Levels still do and it would be absolutely great.

    March 28th, 2012 at 08:43

  69. Frederik

    Care to comment on the full stack?

    – Node.js on the backend?
    – What do you use for load balancing?
    – What server hardware specs do you run on?

    March 28th, 2012 at 09:28

    1. Paul Rouget

      We will get a blog post about that.

      March 29th, 2012 at 06:56

  70. Zsombro

    I managed to hack the game by editing localStorage, is there a way you can protect your game against that?

    Maybe you should encrypt the data that saves the character information.

    March 28th, 2012 at 09:55

  71. Hoen

    Juste a little message to say GG dude! it’s a reall neat and refreshing little game ^_^ An awesome multi in HTML5 ^^

    March 28th, 2012 at 10:06

  72. Deathdragon

    Does anyone have problems with audio too?
    I am using Firefox 11 and can’t get audio to work so far.

    March 28th, 2012 at 10:37

    1. Carl114

      Sound does not work from the afternoon. Probably an error on the server side. Apparently…

      March 28th, 2012 at 13:43

      1. Paul Rouget

        We are, indeed, having some issues with the sound. 2 bugs. We fixed the first one, and are actively working on the second one.

        March 29th, 2012 at 06:57

        1. Carl114

          Wow, thanks! :o)

          March 29th, 2012 at 07:15

  73. skyler

    stuck at “connecting to server…” on T-mobile G2/DesireZ for 10 min now. i do see the status bar at the bottom though.

    March 28th, 2012 at 10:52

  74. Grzeshtoff

    Thais game is great! i think there’s nothing more to say…
    You coulda add some lvl’uping and a basic inventory (for storing potions :))
    I also thought about adding a bit of classical rpg options like trading and gold (silver, bronze,azurite etc. call it wateaver you want :)) that woulda make a VERY nice mmorpg game :D keep up the good work and i hope this will not end as an closed project ;)

    March 28th, 2012 at 12:07

  75. eike

    Excellent! I really like the graphics, everything worked fine besides music or sound. But even in muted version it´s still fun to play.

    March 28th, 2012 at 12:11

  76. Josh Levitan

    Cool game, and nice use of the tech. Wondering why you can only get ~80 players per instance, though…

    March 28th, 2012 at 12:34

  77. samnob

    Hi, your post says that the game is open source, but I can’t find any reference to what license it’s being published under, not even in a quick poke through the source on github. Am I overlooking some kind of blanket policy? Is it safe to assume it’s MPL?

    March 28th, 2012 at 12:38

    1. Paul Rouget

      It is MPL. We are adding the LICENSE file very soon.

      March 29th, 2012 at 07:03

  78. elick

    wow – awesome work! Really looking forward to reading through the code when I get home.. I’d like to take a crack at porting this to coffeescript.

    March 28th, 2012 at 12:42

  79. Jon

    Realised why I couldn’t get this working: The wifi I’m on blocks non port-80 traffic. I thought one of the central points of web sockets was to allow communication over port 80 to get around this kind of blocking, so why run this on a different port?

    March 28th, 2012 at 15:24

    1. Mike

      I think I have the same problem… is there a way to change this so I can play the game?

      March 28th, 2012 at 19:18

  80. ken

    Nice game! I just have one question: What’s the 20/20 task (quest)? Seeya

    March 28th, 2012 at 16:40

  81. Juve

    Just tried it, looks awesome, Just as it should be, clean and neat. But on my server 60 people were online, and it ran horribly slow. Though either the site has a scaling problem in node.js, or my Firefox 11 (Ubuntu 10.10) has massive canvas drawing problems, which I cant say for other canvas demos. :(

    March 28th, 2012 at 22:43

    1. Juve

      For all who had performance problems. In my case this was caused by the proprietary nvidia drivers. I switchted to nouveau. Canvas rendering runs smooth as butter now.

      March 31st, 2012 at 02:34

  82. Joe

    It works nice and smooth on my Firefox 9.01 and Linux Mint Debian with more than 50 people playing, so it doesn’t seem to be a scaling problem…

    March 29th, 2012 at 00:32

  83. VE

    Doesnt work in iPad .

    March 29th, 2012 at 01:01

    1. Leet

      Your issue for using an iPad. Burn it and get an Android.

      March 29th, 2012 at 03:10

      1. Meh

        And here comes the troll

        March 29th, 2012 at 17:17

  84. webdesigner

    Impressive work! I really liked the game, continue the good work! The game was a bit too short :)

    March 29th, 2012 at 01:39

  85. dario

    mine does not start playing from fedora 16

    March 29th, 2012 at 04:39

  86. perry

    great work based on html5, the game a bit too easy and short though.

    March 29th, 2012 at 07:19

  87. Alex

    This is interesting, Im definitely going to look into this

    March 29th, 2012 at 08:34

  88. James

    I have the same problem. Still stuck on ‘connecting to servers’

    March 29th, 2012 at 09:07

  89. jadawin

    Jeu sympa et rapide, trop rapide d’ailleurs on reste sur sa faim car on a vite fait le tour mais ça amuse 10 minutes. Merci aux développeurs.

    March 29th, 2012 at 09:17

  90. @bjarneo_

    BrowserQuest is pretty awesome! But one thing, fix so if someone hit backspace, promp if they want to leave the page/game. :)

    March 29th, 2012 at 10:19

  91. Wade

    Any tutorials on setting up a server?

    Server requirements?

    March 29th, 2012 at 11:49

    1. DomClaxton

      I’m going to post something soon. There are a number of bugs that I came across to do with the build.
      Check out my blog over the next couple of days and it will be up there.
      http://domclaxton.tumblr.com
      I’m going to include a full guide to setting up Amazon Web Server too.
      In the meantime have a look at my build here:

      http://ec2-23-20-174-209.compute-1.amazonaws.com/client/index.html

      This is my development server so it might go down from time to time as I work on other things.

      March 29th, 2012 at 15:42

  92. van_ban

    html5で何ができるか、すばらしい技術でした。
    開発者の方に、ありがとう。
    [Rough and imperfect translation by an editor: What can we do with HTML5? A splendid example. Thank you to the developers.]

    March 29th, 2012 at 11:55

  93. Barnabus Proboscis

    Please, please, please create some way for friends to play together. Picking servers, maybe.

    March 29th, 2012 at 12:42

  94. Ramussen

    Cool demo, but it doesn’t work in IE, and it also doesn’t work in Chrome (version 17.0.963.83).

    So for a tech experiment, it’s very cool, but honestly if it only works in Firefox it’s seriously not ready for the prime time.

    March 29th, 2012 at 13:56

  95. Aeldonis

    Won’t Load, loading circle just spins in Firefox. In chrome it just stays on connecting to server. I’m unable to find any help for this.

    March 29th, 2012 at 13:57

  96. RAM

    Trolling players… :-)

    http://youtu.be/sEpog00po5I

    March 29th, 2012 at 14:29

  97. DomClaxton

    If anyone’s having problems connecting try it here:
    I set up my own version using the github depository.
    It’s hosted on the the Amazon cloud here

    http://ec2-23-20-174-209.compute-1.amazonaws.com/client/index.html

    This is my development server so it might go down from time to time as I work on other things.

    March 29th, 2012 at 15:38

  98. James

    Was able to play game fine until lat last night when I only get the “Connecting to server…” no matter the browser used.

    According to browserquest.mozilla.org/status/ there is pnly 692 players and averages some 57 to 59. When I was playing before it averaged 69 to 76 on server,

    March 29th, 2012 at 16:50

  99. Paul Rouget

    We fixed the “Connecting to server…” timeout.

    March 29th, 2012 at 17:18

    1. Meh

      Still not working here.

      March 29th, 2012 at 17:22

  100. Jon

    I have tried reloading the page, and I’m still stuck on “connecting to server” -__-

    March 29th, 2012 at 18:03

  101. Tyen

    Do you have enough concurrent players to continue building upon what you have already started?

    For example, implementation of PvP and a better chat window to have a history of things said around you, or even chat channels.

    I noticed that there isn’t options to use WASD or other keyboard shortcuts. Is there a targeting system planned?

    Our community is discussing this topic in the link below….”the most important Internet forums for fans of multiplayer online role-playing games, Fires of Heaven.” -nytimes

    http://www.fohguild.org/forums/mmorpg-general-discussion/46974-browserquest.html

    March 29th, 2012 at 21:39

  102. Jon Snow

    Cool game, I am hope that the map will grow bigger

    March 30th, 2012 at 02:04

  103. Steve

    What are you plans with BrowserQuest? Will you add content? Or is it just a proof of concept that others can expand on? Are you in contact with anyone who is working on expanding the game?

    March 30th, 2012 at 02:17

  104. Gerard

    Still connecting to server.

    March 30th, 2012 at 05:44

    1. Glenn

      I’m also stuck at this screen. All the servers looked to have decent helth (green bars, non ful), but I still never make it passed the “connecting to server” screen

      March 31st, 2012 at 16:48

  105. Julien Brightside

    This is quite the good game. It is enjoyable to play.

    March 30th, 2012 at 06:24

  106. lucas

    Cool game !
    But i have some bugs: can u guys help me?

    1 – playing on Android (galaxy s2), when i enter in the cave near the vulcan, its freeze and i cant walk. The chat and options still works, but i cant walk.

    2- mine browser dont load the game, i have the last mozilla fire fox, but it still not working, just dont load the game.

    Tnx

    March 30th, 2012 at 06:32

    1. Bullfrog

      I have the same freezing problem in the same place on the same handset.

      May 20th, 2012 at 07:27

  107. Daggon

    Hey guys, the continual “connecting to server message” means that the server is full. The servers aren’t very big, so I too haven’t managed to play this yet :(

    March 30th, 2012 at 06:52

  108. Pedropon

    I am not sure if I finished the game,
    I have accomplish the 20 tasks,
    I have the red cape but I don’t know what’s next…

    This is a terrific game, So much sweet memories, thanks

    March 30th, 2012 at 10:11

  109. Reelix

    Names? Armour?!?

    Bah – In my days, he had to kill skeleton kings with our bear hands, whilst naked!

    http://i.imgur.com/q5jnS.png

    March 30th, 2012 at 10:26

    1. Peregrine

      Bear hands?! Where can I get me some bear hands to wield?

      April 29th, 2012 at 10:35

  110. Zarggg

    Still does not load as of 19:52 EDT (UTC-04:00). Using Firefox 11.0. Game does not proceed past “Connecting to server…”

    March 30th, 2012 at 16:53

  111. James C.

    How do you become a rat?

    March 30th, 2012 at 16:58

    1. V

      I think you mean a fox, not a rat. And it’s by drinking an orange potion.

      April 2nd, 2012 at 04:16

  112. yogesh

    looking cool start to play !

    March 30th, 2012 at 18:08

  113. Fiote

    Dude, this game is EPIC! I would literally give away AN ARM to know how to pixelize that good.

    Or not, since i’m fucking drunk.

    But SERIOUSLY, this is a FUCKING great game! I LOVE webbased game, and this thing just own everything. My grandson would congratz you, but i’m only 24 old… so let me do it myself. CONGRATZ DUDE!

    March 30th, 2012 at 19:33

  114. Fiote

    and by “dude”, you should read “everyone that worked on it”.

    March 30th, 2012 at 19:37

  115. MarkRH

    Seems to work fine with FF 11.0 in Windows XP Home/SP3 except for the audio.. it keeps going in and out. I notice FF is using 100% CPU so my guess is it’s due to that. But last time I played I was getting no audio at all.. so it’s better than it was LOL.

    March 31st, 2012 at 03:00

  116. RedBeard

    Doesn’t work! Windows 7 x64 SP1, FF 11.0, just sits at connecting to server and it never connects or anything.

    March 31st, 2012 at 07:22

  117. Ozerren

    Same here. Just sits there connecting for both FF 11 and chrome. Also, can’t connect with my phone, so I don’t think it is a windows or port problem.

    March 31st, 2012 at 13:42

  118. ZASPERS

    Muito bom o game!

    March 31st, 2012 at 14:22

  119. g1i1ch

    I’m not impressed. The only nice thing is the tiling and somewhat the websockets which are extremely simple in any case.

    March 31st, 2012 at 14:39

  120. Joel

    I think everyone should have their own theme music depending on how high a level they are….. wouldn’t it be cool to have your own theme music and scare folk in town when you come in….. ; >

    March 31st, 2012 at 18:01

  121. oukourj

    No way to play, I’m connecting to server for 10 minutes….

    April 1st, 2012 at 04:35

  122. LordJebe

    Unplayable with Nokia N9 default browser, somewhat playable with Firefox for Nokia N9.

    April 1st, 2012 at 07:53

  123. Jesse

    Não conecta em nenhum dos meus Firefox. Testei no Ubuntu, Windows 7 e Android.

    April 1st, 2012 at 09:46

  124. Wolfen

    Pour les joueurs français qui ne parlent pas anglais, voici un site qui a traduit les quêtes et offrent quelques autres contenus :

    http://worldofbrowserquest.blogspot.fr/

    Le blog est encore en chantier.

    April 1st, 2012 at 10:39

  125. Benya82

    Encontre un bug, si entras en un callejon sin salida como el que esta a un lado de la casa del rey y das click en otra area para salir si el personaje cruza a otra porcion del terreno de juego y con esto cuando termine de moverse quedar inmovil, el chat y lo demas funciona, pero tu personaje deja de responder
    ——————————
    I found a bug, if you go in a dead end like the one that is beside the king’s house and you click in other place to go out if the player cross to another game map portion when him finish to move he will stay freeze everything else works but the player stop responding

    April 1st, 2012 at 17:45

  126. Bravo

    This doesn’t work with my Windows 8 touchscreen… need to use a mouse. A fix for that seem apt.

    April 2nd, 2012 at 14:57

    1. Jean-Yves Perrier

      You should fill a bug in Bugzilla for that. Windows 8 is still in beta and wasn’t a target, but it is interesting that devs look at the problem to see if it is a bug in Gecko or in W8.

      April 2nd, 2012 at 16:39

      1. Bravo

        I was able to download and use Firefox like normal on the Windows desktop for 8, so IE (the new, antiFlash, pro HTML5, metro version) must simply be inferior. Chrome also worked.

        April 6th, 2012 at 10:06

  127. Anjo666

    Eu gostei do jogo , é muito interessante esse negocio do html5+java e tal, um dos únicos MMORPG 16-bits existentes… vocês poderiam aproveitar a amostra do jogo e continuar o construindo , afinal tem bastante gente online ao mesmo tempo …. façam um pequeno investimento no jogo que vocês terão sucesso. Coloquem + classes, ampliem o mundo, coloquem opções como poder comprar casa , dominar castelos , tudo isso vai compensar muito no final. Estão de parabéns =D

    April 2nd, 2012 at 15:54

  128. Wade

    Character doesn’t save on iOS devices (iPhone4S). When killed or reload game, character starts at beginning again (collected weapon and armor disappear).

    April 3rd, 2012 at 06:28

  129. Keols

    I like it, was very fun … but was only a little moment!!

    April 3rd, 2012 at 12:15

  130. Alex

    Yeah it kind of blows. It also shows like 1/4 of what my tablet shows even though my resolution isn’t that low on the iPhone.

    Still, it’s a great game for FireFox or Chrome on my Windows 7&8 tablet.

    April 3rd, 2012 at 18:01

  131. BugsBunny

    Great Game!!! I completed 19 of 20 tasks. Don’t know what the 20th task is or how to unlock it. I think i have slaughtered enough characters many times over…Any hints for task 20?

    April 6th, 2012 at 23:53

    1. Jean-Yves Perrier

      You have to talk with one NPC. Rock’nroll!

      April 7th, 2012 at 14:16

    2. Daniel

      Just eat the cake in the village to complete quest 20

      April 17th, 2012 at 11:11

  132. ghostshadow

    This is amazing. I got all of the achievements yay!! I hope there’s more in the future. This rocks!

    April 7th, 2012 at 00:38

  133. Neoro

    Cool Game but the map are very small i have played the Game in 5minutes i hope the maps will bigger and foghts and other equips will be aviable.

    Sorry for my bad english :D

    April 9th, 2012 at 08:47

  134. Nick

    This should be the official game for mozilla / firefox, it’s so much fun even for a demo! There’s really not that much you guys would need to add in to make it more of a game.

    April 9th, 2012 at 15:42

  135. Juegos de Mario

    I would be really interested in joining a community of BrowserQuest developers. This a great basic engine, but I want more!

    April 10th, 2012 at 08:12

  136. Fred

    Too bad i can’t even play it no browser is working :(
    Stuck on connect FF 11 or chrome same thing

    win7 64 bit

    April 10th, 2012 at 11:49

  137. rick

    FYI, someone is spawning NPCs all over the map and telling players to ‘f*** off’ and calling players a** clown’ when followed. If they’re going to act like a part of the game, they can expect to be followed. There’s no need for name calling, as they could have just said they were not part of the game. They could have been a tut or one of the last two accomplishments for all any new player knows.

    Just a heads up, so anyone looking here first knows they’re not a tut. And since I’ve never met a dev dumb enough to get pissed over getting followed, I’m thinking it’s NOT someone involved in making the game. Pro devs are typically a smarter bunch than that.

    Just my 2 cents…

    Aside from that, the game is pretty sweet. Thanks for making it!

    April 10th, 2012 at 20:35

  138. Wolfen

    I’ve created a community developer forum about BrowserQuest : http://browserquestlabs.forumsactifs.com/

    This forum is available in English, Français, Español.

    April 15th, 2012 at 09:34

  139. DaVince

    Right. No browser on my favourite mobile device apparently can use web sockets, so I am unable to play this. Oh well.

    April 16th, 2012 at 04:27

  140. paccione

    Hi
    Ive uploaded the source code to my server and can get the index.html page but need to know how to config it does anyone know of a video tutorial that explains how to get this great little game running on a dedicated server thx in advance to any help

    April 17th, 2012 at 08:14

  141. Alex Martini

    The problems of “not connecting” are fault of webproxy. If you’re behind a proxy server will not work.

    April 17th, 2012 at 16:34

  142. Joseph Pruitt

    This is a great start for a game. I’d really like to see more come out

    April 22nd, 2012 at 22:14

  143. argentum online

    finally, better games, with the latest technologies!
    thanks to all the community!

    April 24th, 2012 at 12:32

  144. Katuiros

    Ehi! I’d like to help you in building up the game!
    Can i be member of your team?

    April 27th, 2012 at 15:41

    1. Jean-Yves Perrier

      The game is on github. You can modify it locally then submit the patches!

      The joy of Open Source!

      April 27th, 2012 at 16:03

  145. Victor Popescu

    We’ve been working on a game developed using these technologies and a bit more, for more than a year now. BugTopia, the HTML5 MMO, will enter the private beta!

    Check out the reveal trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQj8xUVOKE4 or find out more at http://www.bugtopia.net and http://facebook.com/bugtopia

    April 30th, 2012 at 23:11

  146. teds

    Found a nice bookmarklet mod for BrowserQuest:

    http://homepage.ntlworld.com/infinnerty/infinnerty/4Fun/

    May 1st, 2012 at 16:25

  147. Okan

    The best beta for a browser game ever! It would be epic if you could turn this into an mmorpg.

    May 3rd, 2012 at 14:01

  148. Zee

    My windows box stuck at connecting to server but my OSX box connects fine.
    WIndows has no firewall and both OSX and Windows are on the same network.

    May 10th, 2012 at 09:22

  149. Sla

    It’s cool game, but have bug:
    playing on Android, when i enter in the cave near the vulcan, its freeze and i cant walk. The chat and options still works, but i cant walk.

    May 19th, 2012 at 23:31

  150. Bullfrog

    I am also finding that the game freezes when I enter the vulcan cave while playing on a galaxy s2. Exactly the same issue as reported earlier in these comments. Not sure what difference the platform should make?

    May 20th, 2012 at 07:33

  151. ywlcjl

    I success try to fix the browserquest “connecting to server” Problem on my win7 x32 sp1, it’s the Anti-virus software setting Problem. I close Web protection on AVAST Anti-virus software , the game can play.

    May 23rd, 2012 at 19:43

  152. Mike

    Well its a very good game but i keep dying so it is not that awesome but its VERY Awesome

    May 31st, 2012 at 17:41

    1. Kyle

      You must not have been trying very hard. I was able to make it through the entire game and get the best armor and beat the final boss in about 10 minutes.

      October 5th, 2012 at 21:00

      1. Sassy

        Me too :)

        February 27th, 2013 at 18:33

  153. Wern

    Very nice game! But is it only normal for this game to use up a lot of resources? Because every time I play it the fan of my laptop spins like crazy and more heat is produced by the computer.

    June 1st, 2012 at 22:04

  154. Weerayut Teja

    Great game with source code. Thank you. I’ll learn from it.

    June 5th, 2012 at 07:56

  155. Simon Smith

    the website doesnt work in Firefox 13.0.1 on Mac :'(

    trying to test out the websockets and also try this game but just keeps saying

    We’re sorry, but your browser does not support WebSockets.
    In order to play, we recommend using the latest version of Firefox, Chrome or Safari.

    July 15th, 2012 at 09:28

  156. Enda Mannn

    I really enjoyed playing this game but wish there were many more tasks to complete. Great work all the same.

    July 20th, 2012 at 02:54

  157. DD

    Sorry if this question sounds silly but I am a newbie to web development as a whole and I have to do a PoC on HTML5 games.

    I have compiled the server and started it on my localhost. If i type “http://localhost:8000/status’ in the browser I get a result. But I cannot get the game to start. What is the URL to start the game? Is it “http://localhost:8000/BrowserQuest”? In the client foler I have modified config_local.json and config_build.json to
    “host”: “ws://localhost”,
    Is this correct.

    August 1st, 2012 at 02:31

  158. Mark Manning

    I think this is awesome. Very smooth text transition, graphics transition, and it played very well. To Mike who keeps dying – quit attacking monsters you can’t kill. Try the smaller ones first. :-) To Wern – the reason your cpu’s fan comes on is because your system probably is not set up to handle the newer technology. Older computers just have a harder time with it because usually the hardware is emulated in software. So a particular bit of code may be executing a lot to compensate for the missing hardware.

    August 5th, 2012 at 12:44

  159. Robert Burkhall

    I’m posting this for anyone who has tried to get the game working on their local machined and have had issues. I describe the problem with cross domain security and the fix(work-around) that I came up with that fixes the game’s connecting issue. Hope this helps!!!

    https://github.com/mozilla/BrowserQuest/issues/96

    https://github.com/rburkhal/BrowserQuest.git

    August 17th, 2012 at 23:52

  160. abhinav

    Really nice :)

    August 20th, 2012 at 01:13

  161. hello

    here to play extension of browserquest

    http://asky.freethinker.kr/index.en.html

    Server runned by an individual
    not for commercial use

    August 22nd, 2012 at 04:01

  162. hello

    here is the new link for the extension of the game

    http://asky.freethinker.kr/index.py?no=00082001010010000066000970010500110&lang=en

    to global chat type /1
    for example “/1 hi”
    to use potion press 1 or 2

    September 3rd, 2012 at 10:00

    1. sonns

      Hello !
      Can you teach me how to exten this game please ?
      I wan to develop it

      December 24th, 2012 at 01:17

  163. alex

    you have to register in browserquest

    September 8th, 2012 at 09:45

  164. Jenny

    Hi,

    I really like this article and the game. I also would like to suggest you a HTML5 game: http://www.a5-animator.com/Pages/Examples_8#prettyPhoto%5Biframes1%5D/0/

    Have fun playing it! :-)

    September 18th, 2012 at 05:30

  165. Robert Wagner

    I get stuck at “Connecting to server…” I’m not to familiar with WebSockets but it might have to do with the fact that I am behind a proxy server. I was able to connect on another device that was not behind the proxy.

    September 24th, 2012 at 11:00

  166. Justin Clift

    For anyone interested in trying out the BrowerQuest code, or getting involved with further development, use this GitHub repo:

    https://github.com/browserquest/BrowserQuest

    The Mozilla repo has many bugs, and although a useful reference point, is abandoned. :(

    September 26th, 2012 at 02:53

  167. Goldniko

    The game cant connect to a server, though i wait for half a hour to do so

    October 7th, 2012 at 20:10

  168. hello

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMiGwCYjJYQ

    here to watch the extended version of browserquest!

    October 11th, 2012 at 05:48

  169. Chris Nikolajsen

    Great game! It reminds me of the SNES game “Zelda: A link to the past”. Its realy nice that you made the game code opensource. Im on a quest to make an HTML5 game and this is going to be a good source of inpiration and knowledge :) thx

    November 7th, 2012 at 01:10

  170. Agent BA-2 “J”

    Agent BA-2 “J” is my character name. (I got it from this DS game called Elite Beat Agents (EBA for short)).

    November 7th, 2012 at 17:51

  171. crizcross

    The last medal *spoiler*. to the east of the forest is a cave guarded by three giants. in the cave take right right bottom left bottom left or sthin like that to get to the rickroller :P

    November 18th, 2012 at 05:42

  172. Juan Vazquez

    This is one heck of a game! I love browserquest

    December 7th, 2012 at 07:52

  173. Yossi levi

    Hi,

    I want to build multiplayer game.

    I read about web-socket which work with tcp protocol which possible to response by 50 ms to each request.

    I know that node.js work with web-socket,
    I read some guide and I see that I must to install node.js on my local host(127.0.0.1).

    My question is:

    How can I integrated the web-sockt in my host domain
    like http://www.mydomain.com instead 127.0.0.1:1337/ -> 1337 port listening ?

    Many Thanks

    December 9th, 2012 at 22:52

  174. RandomAdventure

    Wow I beat the game and got the best armor in 10 minutes! :D

    December 30th, 2012 at 05:56

  175. RandomAdventure

    Also RandomAdventure is my game’s username

    December 30th, 2012 at 06:08

  176. Cameron

    Unfortunately, while the game claims iOS compatibility, this is not the case. The game freezes you whenever you enter the room containing the boss using mobile Safari. Whichever bug causes this should be fixed. It is not “compatible”, in my opinion, if it does not function properly. Misleading, and very disappointing for the many users that cannot complete this game.

    January 10th, 2013 at 19:57

  177. Francis

    The page could use something that stops you pressing back button

    January 22nd, 2013 at 13:35

  178. Stephanie Bergmann

    I want to play Games @ Facebook in Germanlanguage!!

    February 12th, 2013 at 11:34

  179. Brian

    This was amazing! I made a multiplayer html5 game of my own after being inspired by this one! Check out http://www.bandwithfriends.com

    February 15th, 2013 at 19:23

  180. PLayer

    make diffrent maps

    March 4th, 2013 at 12:38

  181. Fire crow

    Awesome !!!! excelent game, the real time between players is wonderful

    March 6th, 2013 at 09:09

  182. Zoe Barrie

    i luve it

    March 27th, 2013 at 10:50

  183. vucko

    I can’t connect to the server, only the message “Connecting to server…” shows up in the browser without any change for more than 10 minutes.

    March 28th, 2013 at 17:41

  184. CraigLiamFord

    When I play the game in my web-browser, I can ha=ear the music playing, But when I use the Windows 8 app, I cannot.

    The sound/Volume is on at the bottom right.

    April 8th, 2013 at 04:47

Comments are closed for this article.